Japan outdoes Korea in silliness

[Urban Ranger]

Japan is considering building a lighthouse at a pair of Pacific Ocean outcroppings at the center of a territorial dispute with China, a coast guard official said Thursday.

The lighthouse is needed "to guarantee the safety of ships" passing by Okinotorishima islets, said Takatoshi Nagasaki, an official with the Japanese coast guard's media section.

Japan claims the Okinotorishima outcroppings -- heavily fortified by cement embankments -- are islands that enable it to extend its exclusive economic zone far into the Pacific.

Yomiuri said the coast guard will ask for 30 million yen in its budget request for fiscal 2006 ending March 2007 to build the lighthouse.

China says Okinotorishima is only a couple of rocks, not islands governed by rules of sovereignty. The land therefore can't be used by Japan to extend its economic zone and prevent Beijing from exploiting the natural resources in the surrounding Pacific Ocean area, Beijing says.

link

Nice islands we have here.

[Az]

Mods trolling

[Urban Ranger]

Bosh thought Korea had it bad when he saw the strange ad in a theater.

Then again, maybe he's right. Those rocks are utterly worthless. These rocks aren't - at least they can be used to screw other countries.

[Bosh]

Damn, those are even smaller than Dokdo. Now in the defense of Korea's strangeness this was just one step in a long series of things such as people setting themselves on fire, people chopping their fingers off, months of hacker wars, constant newspaper headlines, Korean poodles being stationed on the islands to ward off evil spirits, special Dokdo triangle sushi made to raise money to defend the islands, korean online computer games that involve defend dokdo adventures or involve attacking monkeys with Koizomi's face etc. etc. The ad just took the whole things to a new surreal level.

The Japanese are being smarter about things, they're going after a definate commercial advantage not chopping their fingers off and screaming about their territorial integrity being threatened.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You list all those other things, and the ad brought things to a new surreal level!?

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
You list all those other things, and the ad brought things to a new surreal level!?

Hey that was a damn strange ad, you have to see it to believe it. There were giant robots
Always as wierd as the Renys ads back home...

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Still better than Marden's though, right?

edit: Woah, Marden's has a web site!

[Bosh]

hmmmmm

then there was the classic "come on down neighbor, we've got the sharpest pencils in town"

but of course all pales before Bob's Stores ads in CT...

[Proteus_MST]

Maybe the japanese officials have played too much CtP2 and
see the Lighthouse as some kind of watchtower,
which extends the Civilizations borders with a radius of 2 tiles

[Provost Harrison]

Damn, at least on the Falklands, there was something to stand on

[C0ckney]

the falklands are bloody massive...

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Bosh
but of course all pales before Bob's Stores ads in CT...

I don't know...This is why you don't have an intro to 3D modeling class do your ads for you. (No, I wasn't in that class.)

Sorry. Continue with your thread about rocks now.

[Colonâ„¢]

Admittedly the isles look very small, but the distance from which the picture is made could be deceiving us.

[Heresson]

Thanks to such small islands like this, Japan can control more ocean, with its fish and other resources. Fighting over small islands is not always dumb.

[CerberusIV]

They want to build a lighthouse to improve the safety of ships?

I saw a piece on TV a few days ago about the UK proposing to close some lighthouses because they are redundant with ships having radar and GPS.

Definitely sounds like a BS excuse to grab a bigger economic zone. Like Rockall.